Ra nervously tapped at her beer glass before it all came tumbling out. “So, there’s this position in Utah,” she started, “but there are so many issues with it.” As she proceeded to list them, I glanced sideways at my wife with a wry smile. We’d heard this routine before, which is why my wife told Ra she needed to talk to me. “Chad’s good with this kind of stuff,” she had said.

I felt offering a little life advice was the least I could do, since Ra had introduced us. About halfway through her litany of problems, I interrupted to ask what the job even was. Here she shifted. Her eyes lit up, her breath caught with excitement, and she talked animatedly. As I listened and asked a few clarifying questions, I observed her mood switch back and forth a few times.

I finally stopped her and noted, “Every time you’ve actually talked about the job itself, what the work is, what it would mean for you—you light up. Boston will always be here if you need to come back. But this might be your only shot at Utah, and you’re gonna kick yourself if you deny yourself the opportunity to light up like that everyday.”

I imagine most of us have felt what Ra was experiencing—the tension that arises when what you’re doing with your life right now, conflicts with what you sense you want or ought to be doing. Maybe you’re working a job you don’t like, where the work itself seems meaningless. Maybe you’re actively working at something that betrays your values. Or maybe for you there’s a longing, an inner sense of wondering if there’s something more for you. Something inside you—call it conscience, call it intuition, call it soul—tells you you’re off track.

I’ve been fielding variations on the question of how to connect my “inner self” with the reality of the “outer self” for going on thirty years now. Like with Ra, it started with friends pondering career choices or moral dilemmas. They came to me because they knew I could help them cut through their own internal noise to find their true voice. My listening to them helped them listen to themselves amidst the cacophony and complexity of modern life.

But beyond others coming to me with the question, life itself has continually posed this to me. How do we connect these two dimensions of ourselves, the inner and the outer, the interior and the exterior? How do we unify them? How do I unify them?

The first step towards integrating them is to notice that experience of tension within. That tension demands attention. If we stay with it, and experience the discomfort it creates, it can be a source of valuable information. What is at stake in the tension? Our livelihood? One or more of our deepest values? A sense of disconnection from what we believe or know to be true? Something pulling us deeper into a particular aspect of life?

However we answer those questions, it’s best to approach our inner tension without judgment and with curiosity, like a scientist gathering data or a historian delving into an inner archive. We’re just gathering information before we do anything with it.

Once we have sufficient awareness of what our inner tension is all about, the second step is to ask what stories we’re telling ourselves about ourselves and the world. We sometimes talk about these stories as “limiting beliefs.” But I think to describe these as “beliefs” is far too anemic, as our concept of belief tends to be rather static and fixed. Rather, they are narratives, stories we tell that determine the range of possibilities in front of us. They can expand or contract our experience in and of the world. They play a fundamental role in our capacity for self-determination, and whether we envision new horizons for ourselves, or stay within the confines of our hallowed, self-built walls.

When there is tension between the inner and the outer, there is always a conflict of stories. The only way to resolve the tension is to tell a new story.

And it’s right here, in the awareness of our tension, in the conflict of our inner and outer stories, that we often flounder. I’ve seen it with those who’ve come to me to help them find their voice and chart their path. And, as painful as it is to admit, I’ve seen it in myself, and silenced my own voice.

During my first semester of college, as a freshman music major, a fellow-major friend opened up to me about some inappropriate behavior they had suffered at the hands of the department chair. A pattern soon emerged, and I helped my friend bear witness to the abuse. The chair was forced into early retirement. But I was angry—at what happened to my friend, at the actions of the chair, and at the school for doing the typical quiet scuttling of these affairs.

At the time, I didn’t know what to do with my anger. I had never learned it was permissible to even experience anger, let alone express it. So I turned it inward, judging myself and others, and I suffered deeply as a result. I had intended to be a music teacher. Instead I quit the major, and the department. I was a singer, yet I silenced myself.

Somewhere in that self-imposed silence, I discovered that we depend on others. That we need community. That going it alone just leads down the path of disconnection.

I’ve been that person to speak words of life and hope and love into another’s silence, to awaken their own voice, to kindle their inner fire so that they could know just who they are and what to do. But as powerful as that experience is, it’s nothing compared to receiving that same help from others I love and trust, even when I thought it wasn’t possible—especially when I thought it wasn’t possible—for me. After I told a friend I hadn’t seen for awhile, “I don’t really do much musically anymore,” it took her observing, “I can’t imagine Chad Smith not doing something musically,” to begin the years-long process of coming back to my musical self.

Becoming aware, interrogating our stories, and receiving the help of community are all necessary steps in connecting inside and outside. They mean nothing if we fail to then enact a new narrative.

I suspect this is why spiritual masters in every tradition speak of the need to always be a beginner. Living out a new narrative is a humbling experience, but it’s the only way to live with integrity, with wholeness, and to set out on a new path before us. It takes courage, perhaps, to change like this. At the beginning, we often can’t see the end of the path. We only get there by keeping our feet moving, retelling and sharing our new story along the way.